Tag: annual campaign

Fundraising zombies “doing the math”

Fundraising, volunteers

On Monday, I stirred the pot with my post titled “Beware of Fundraising Zombies!” and there has been lots and lots of reaction.

First, let me say thank you to everyone who read that post. Second, let me give an extra special thank you to those of you who forwarded it to others (I always appreciate that). Finally, let me clarify that I am not suggesting donors stop supporting non-profits who are selling tickets to the City of Elgin’s Halloween zombie event. What I advocated for in the post was donors boycotting those agency’s special events, but still sending a check to their charity for the full amount of what they would’ve spent at the event.

I am not suggesting that we put anyone out of business, and perhaps calling for a “boycott” was a bit dramatic . . . but it did get your attention didn’t it?  However, I am seriously suggesting that donors can play a huge role in helping non-profits change their behavior when it comes to the art of fundraising.

Perhaps, the most interesting thing to me that came out of Monday’s blog post and subsequent reaction is how many people apparently still grapple with the idea of “return on investment” and what Charity Navigator points out in its study on special event fundraising.

So, I’ve decided to use a purely hypothetical example to clarify this concept. Let’s just say a non-profit organization decided to run a rubber duck race raffle fundraiser. Drilling down into the hypothetical numbers, we might find something like this:

  • Gross income = $185,855 (remember that the “in-kind” prizes and media sponsorships are included in this number even though they aren’t cash)
  • Gross expense = $128,305 (again, remember that in-kind donations are washed out on both sides of the budget)
  • Net income = $57,550 (but this only accounts for “direct costs” and doesn’t take into account hidden indirect costs)
  • Let’s hypothetically say the agency’s CEO spends 60% of his/her time over a 12-week period working on this fundraiser. The agency’s Development Director is far more involved and easily sinks 90% of their time into this project during the same time period (this fails to account for the months of planning time incurred throughout the year). Finally, the poor administrative assistant is typing their fingers to the bone entering donations into two separate computer databases. Add up all these salaries and it probably comes to approximately $25,000, which means net income falls from $57,550 to $32,550.
  • It should be mentioned that at least 100 volunteers were hypothetically mobilized to make this event happen, and each volunteer probably averaged 10 to 15 hours (which included some combination of staffing two or three duck sales remotes, attending a few meetings/training/kickoff, and the day-of-event operations).

Without allocating other indirect costs (e.g. insurance, utilities, rent, gas for the duck van, payroll taxes, employee benefits, etc), let’s just say this event netted a realistic $32,550. The reality is that most special event fundraisers are not as productive as this hypothetical duck race example and end up closer to ZERO dollars raised or worse yet they end up “in the red” when all of the direct and indirect pennies are counted.

But wait! There is more . . . this duck race analysis wouldn’t be complete without factoring in a small concept like “opportunity cost“.

This same hypothetical non-profit agency ALSO runs an annual campaign (e.g. pledge drive where volunteers ask donors and community supporters to make a direct contribution and forego the fanfare of an event). Drilling down into the numbers, we might find something like this for this hypothetical agency’s annual campaign:

  • Gross revenue = $68,322
  • Gross expense = $4,174
  • Net income = $64,148
  • Add indirect costs that come from staff involvement (e.g. CEO, Development Director, Administrative Assistant) and another $7,903 of expense magically appears and the net income drops from 64,148 to $56,244.

Hmmm …. what would happen to this hypothetical agency’s annual campaign if the Duck Race was cancelled and those 100 duck volunteers all agreed to help with the annual campaign?

Let’s say these 100 volunteers all made face-to-face visits with five new donor prospects to the annual campaign. This represents an additional 500 people receiving visits and solicitations. Let’s also pretend that the “average size gift” to the annual campaign is $100 (it is usually much higher in my experience). This would push annual campaign net income up from $56,244 to $106,244.

Of course, there would be a loss of $32,550 in Duck Race net income in this scenario, but you just picked up $50,000 from shifting volunteer resources to a more productive fundraising activity. In other words, this hypothetical agency just LOST $17,450 by running what looked like (at first blush) to be a highly successful duck race special event. (Some agencies would look at this unrealized $17,450 and think it looks remarkably like a part-time employee position)

Yes … there are holes to be picked in this hypothetical story. For example, there is value in the publicity this non-profit receives from their Duck Race media sponsorships. The 500 new annual campaign asks might not all materialize into pledges. And the picking can go on and on and on. However, please keep in mind that this was a quick, rough and hypothetical example. You can ignore everything I just wrote and it doesn’t get us around the fact that there has been a study by Charity Navigator that empirically proves that special events don’t make money.

To be clear, I am NOT suggesting that non-profit organizations stop doing special events altogether. If they can plan and implement cost-effective events that bring additional intangible benefits, then please add one or two of these events to your annual written resource development plan. If you need help with a Resource Development Audit or writing a Resource Development Plan, I know where you can hire a really talented consultant who is dying to help you.   😉

However, when your local municipality asks that you sell tickets to their special events (with the promise of netting a few hundred dollars) and asks you to recruit your volunteers to help with day-of-event activities, then perhaps you should think twice about committing your agency’s limited resources in such a way.

Again . . . one final disclaimer. I think the Nightmare on Chicago Street is a great event idea. It is fun and an innovative way for the city to entice residents to rediscover downtown and its merchants. I encourage people to attend, but I encourage them to buy their tickets at the door and not from the non-profits who are selling them. In my experience, non-profits don’t sit-up and pay attention to issues like this one until donors start speaking up. This is a golden opportunity to make a point. Please join me in doing so.

While I appreciated all of the supportive emails on Monday, I encourage all of you to weigh-in with your thoughts by using the comment box below. Let’s all learn from each other. We can disagree and do so in a respectful manner. After all, this is what America is all about.

Here is to your health! (Sorry for the super long blog post this morning . . . zombies always get me going. LOL)

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847|
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Engaging donors directly? Brilliant!

Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

Marketing works. I know this because periodically I catch myself associating real life things with television commercials.

For example, I was at city hall in Elgin, Illinois the other day trying to acquire my small business license. I thought doing something in person might be more efficient. Unfortunately, that was NOT true. I was turned away by a clerk who asked to me to do this online. When I turned around to talk out of the building, I saw this huge sign sitting on an easel. It advertised Mayor Dave Kaptain’s “Listening Sessions” and promoted public participation.

At that very moment, the old Guinness beer commercial came streaming into my head. Do you know which one I’m talking about? Click here to enjoy this flashback to the not-so-distant past.

So, why is this so “brilliant” and what does it have anything to do with non-profit organizations, which is at the heart of this blog?

For starters, I think it is brilliant because in this day and age of mass media, the answer always seems to be: send them a letter, advertise on television, put it on the website, “tweet” it, organize an email blast, and the list goes on and on. I haven’t heard anyone say in a very long time: “let’s go out there and engage people directly” on issues that are important to them.

As for the question about how this pertains to non-profit organizations, all I have to say is that non-profits should take a page out of Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain’s book. Here are just a few ideas for non-profits that I thought of as I walked out of city hall:

  • Organize a “town hall meeting” at your non-profit service site on any number of issues your agency helps address every day. Invite donors, volunteers, community leaders, and collaborative partners to attend and participate.
  • Organize a series of quarterly or monthly “brown bag lunch meetings” focused on one of the issues your agency deals with every day. Invite a guest speaker from the community to speak about some part of the issue (e.g. your state representative, city council member, chamber of commerce or hospital CEO, etc). Also invite donors to bring their brown bag lunches and participate in this lunch program.
  • Organize a small reception and honor someone in the community who works hard and does something related to your agency’s mission. For example, a domestic violence shelter could put together a small after-work reception to honor a local police officer for their commitment to working differently and compassionately with victims. Invite your donors and ask them to turn-out and help you honor this person.
  • Organize a petition drive around one of your issues and ask donors to help secure signatures.
  • Organize focus groups for each of your fundraisers and ask donors to provide feedback. Invite your donors to help you dream by asking them what they think it would take to “double” the funds raised from that specific fundraisers. After all, who else would know best other than the participating donor?

Non-profit organizations don’t always need to be out front, jumping around screaming “look at me . . . look at me!” Donors are capable of digesting subtle messages, and these types of activities will position you as a leader in your field. Mix in a few subtle “return on investment” messages, and donors will walk away feeling very good about their most recent investment in your organization.

Don’t charge any money. Resist the urge to solicit your donors during these mission-moments. This is about engagement . . . not about cash flow. If you find yourself saying “you don’t have the time or resources” to do these kinds of things, then I suspect you aren’t interested in looking at your donor loyalty numbers either (and with Halloween around the corner this could be a very scary activity to undertake).

Non-profit organizations need to get back to investing in personal stewardship and engaging donors in real mission-focused activities in between solicitation opportunities. I urge you to go beyond the donor database generated acknowledgement letter, email or Tweet. There are countless examples of how to do this if you just keep your eyes open. We can all learn something from politicians, for-profit corporations and our fellow non-profit friends.

This entire post aligns well with my teachable point of view that non-profits need to stop treating donors like ATMs!!! Of course, if you don’t commit to being a life-long learner on the subject of donor engagement, then you might start looking like Ms. Swan from this old Mad TV comedy sketch  (albeit less fortunate than she turned out to be in the end of the sketch).

How is your organization stewarding its donors? How are you going beyond traditional stewardship and engaging them? Have you done any benchmarking to see how your efforts impact your donor loyalty numbers? If so, what was the result? We can all learn from each other. So, please use the comment box below and share your secrets. Because failing to do so would not be BRILLIANT!

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847|
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Beware of Fundraising Zombies!

Fundraising

I’ve finally had my fill of special events ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

In my hometown of Elgin, Illinois, the city will host a “zombie-themed” Halloween event for adults on October 29, 2011. It is being promoted as “Nightmare on Chicago Street“. While this sounds fun and I am sure it is a great idea to entice people to visit our starving downtown merchants, I was shocked and disappointed when I heard that city staff, council members and our newly elected mayor were promoting this as one of their strategies to help area non-profit organizations during tough economic times.

Here is the back story in a quick nutshell.  The City of Elgin is facing tough times (as are most municipalities) and is projecting a $4.5 million budget deficit next year unless belt-tightening occurs. There are some who want to cut city spending to support non-profit organizations that align with key community strategic priorities. Please understand that the story is much more complicated than this quick synopsis, but let’s start here.

With non-profit organizations starting to light their torches and grab their pitchforks, someone at city hall came up with the genius idea to sell this event to non-profits as a way to make some money. Again . . . here it is in a quick nutshell . . . non-profits have been given 100 tickets on consignment, they sell tickets for $5.00 each, and they get to keep the profits (aka $500.00). In exchange for the city’s incredible generosity, participating non-profit organizations are supposed to rally their volunteers to help out on the day of the event.

Hmmmmmm? Where do I start?

  • Wow, really? An opportunity to net $500? Thanks! Let’s get real . . . weeks of ticket sales and a bushel basket of volunteer hours all for a $500.00 return on investment is paltry. In fact, a good non-profit agency can sit down with an individual donor and walk away with a $500.00 pledge to their annual campaign with a simple one-hour investment of time.
  • The ONLY reasons that intelligent non-profits organize a few well-run annual special events is to: 1) raise awareness of their brand and 2) create a venue for new prospective donors to join the party and get to know the charity in a fun atmosphere. This city event accomplishes neither of these goals for any of the participating organizations.
  • Most importantly, when will ANYONE out there read the “2007 Special Events Study” commissioned by Charity Navigator? Special event are a terrible way to raise money. The study found that the typical non-profit organization ends up spending $1.33 to raise $1.00 (looking at direct and indirect costs) with a special event vehicle.

My advice for Elgin area non-profit organizations — act like Nancy Reagan and “Just Say No!” Stop selling your tickets. Turn your tickets back into the city. Don’t recruit your volunteers to work this event. It isn’t worth it, and more to the point . . . you are being poor stewards of your organization’s resources if you go down this road.  Frankly, I can’t think of a bigger non-profit sin.

 

My advice to the City of Elgin (or any city doing this kind of thing with their non-profit sector) — do this event and do it in style. The downtown merchants are in desperate need of your help. You need to drive traffic downtown. However, you need to stop exploiting your influence with non-profit organizations. It just isn’t cool! You know non-profits will jump through any hoops you put out there for them because they mistakenly believe that currying your favor might lead to city grants or government funding. Start partnering with non-profits by reaching out to those who align with the city’s strategic interests. This collaboration could include any number of things: helping identify grant opportunities at the state and federal level, partnering on grant writing,  and providing access to key city resources including your employees (e.g. volunteer opportunities, etc).

My advice to donors — Go to the Nightmare on Chicago Street or whatever your local municipality is organizing. We need to re-ignite our collective sense of community during these tough economic times. With regard to Elgin’s event, DO NOT purchase tickets from your favorite non-profit organization. You are doing them a great disservice, sending the wrong message, and enabling bad fundraising practices. Instead, pay the extra $2.00 at the door and send a personal check to the charity you would’ve bought your tickets from (because a direct donation to a non-profit’s annual campaign is the least expensive way for an organization to raise funds). As a matter of fact, I encourage donors to go a step further . . . send a message to those non-profits who are selling tickets by boycotting all of their events for the next year. Whenever you get an event invitation in the mail, just send them the money you would’ve spent. If no one shows up to their events, non-profits will stop organizing them and you will have more time to spend at home with your family.

OK . . . there are lots of people having fun with the Nightmare on Chicago Street (and countless other special events being organized in other communities) as evidenced by this YouTube video on Elgin zombies and this YouTube video of pumpkins and ghosts on Chicago Street. Have a ton of fun, but join me in sending a strong message to non-profit organizations about being more attentive to concepts like “return on investment” and being “good stewards” of their agency’s resources.

Where is your organization regarding the question of special event fundraising? How do you perceive the government funding trends? What are you doing to insulate your agency against city council and city staff belt-tightening initiatives? Please weigh-in using the comment box below because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847|
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

The Sounds of Annual Campaign Planning: Part 5

Fundraising, Planning, volunteers

Today is my fifth and final blog post dedicated to the 2012 annual campaign planning process, and as I did with the previous four posts I’m putting it to music just for the fun of it. Today’s post focuses on the project management components of your plan.

Cue the music . . . click here for your first musical selection then start reading.  🙂

Getting your volunteers around a table to talk about big picture things — like your annual campaign goal, volunteer recruitment strategies, and policies — really just amount to dreaming and wishing. The magic really happens when the discussion is finally had around: ‘who’ is doing ‘what’ and ‘where’ are they doing it, and by ‘when’ it needs to get done.

For me, the old expression “How do you eat and elephant? One bite at a time!” comes to mind.

When fundraising staff roughs out a project management task list and hands it over to volunteers, I’ve never seen a happy ending associated with this strategy. Think of it this way — how can one person know what everyone else is capable and willing to do? Isn’t there an old expression about “ass-uming”???

This is an opportunity to engage people around getting stuff done, and it doesn’t have to be very complicated. Here is what my “To Do List” for a staff person might be for facilitating this part of the annual campaign planning process:

  1. Download a project management task list template from the internet or construct a simple one in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Or use Microsoft Project to organize things.
  2. Look at the campaign in its entirety and start breaking it out into small bite size tasks. The smaller, the better! Add those tasks to your punch list template.
  3. Organize a meeting of your annual campaign volunteers and go the extra mile to find a date/time that works for as close to 100% of the team. Trust Madonna when it comes to this step.
  4. Send the draft task list out to volunteers well in advance of the meeting. Ask everyone to review the tasks and come prepared to talk about when they think certain tasks can realistically be accomplished and who needs to be asked to do which tasks. Most importantly, ask them to think about which tasks they really want to personally volunteer to do.
  5. At the meeting, start by facilitating a discussion around timeframes and deadlines for individual tasks. Always keep in mind that some tasks are more critical than others. For example, the solicitation materials need to be designed and printed before volunteer solicitors can make any solicitations. A Gantt Chart might be useful as part of this exercise, or it might be something you assemble afterward to ensure the committee’s first draft works.
  6. After roughing out timeframes, ask everyone to roll up their sleeves and facilitate a discussion around: ‘who wants to do what?’ This discussion might involve people jumping in to personally grab certain tasks. It might turn into a discussion focused on who else needs to be recruited or asked to sit around the table. Regardless, these are good conversations because it represents the sound of “engagement”.

If there is silence during this last step (cue Simon & Garfunkel), then you just learned something else. You found out that your campaign is in danger of failing. The good news is that you discovered this way before launching your campaign, and there is still time to recruit more volunteers and get it together. Whatever you do, DON’T try to force the meeting because the it will end up looking like the one facilitated by this kid on YouTube. More importantly, the engagement you thought you just gained will all be fake and worth nothing during the campaign if you strong-arm people into doing something they don’t want to do.

Yes, this activity can be time-consuming, but it is a wise investment. Not only will you get people engaged, but it will become an important accountability tool during the implementation phase of your campaign. If used correctly, your project management task list (created with volunteer input) will help keep the “Procrastination Song” out of volunteer’s heads as they travel down that road with you.  🙂

How does your organization go about creating its project management tools for the annual campaign? Are there certain templates you like more than others? Can you point to those tools online? Do you have a success story or lesson learned around engaging volunteers in this process that you’re willing to share? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

The Sounds of Annual Campaign Planning: Part 4

Fundraising, Planning

As most of you already know, I am dedicating all of this week’s blog posts to the 2012 annual campaign planning process, and I’m putting it all to music just for the fun of it. Today’s post focuses on constructing your campaign’s policies.

Cue the music . . . click here for your first musical selection then start reading.  🙂

First, let me admit that I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to skipping the policy writing part of the annual campaign planning process. For some reason, I always saw this exercise as a harmless corner that could be cut without too much damage being done. For this reason, it is important to address this question first: “Why should you write policies pertaining specifically to your annual campaign?”

When in doubt, I always say “Google It!!!” … so I did and found this great little blurb straight out of a U.S. Department of Agriculture manual:

“Policies give direction to plans. They are a road map [that] management can follow to reach goals and attain objectives. Well written policy facilitates delegation of authority to the lowest feasible level . . . “

Let me use an example to help illustrate the importance of this wonderful little blurb and put it into context for a volunteer-driven fundraising campaign. So, let’s say I am sitting with a donor and just asked her to consider making a pledge of $1,000 to our annual campaign. The donor seems agreeable, but has some questions. I handle the first few questions flawlessly, but then we start getting into territory where I don’t have the slightest idea of what the answer might be (e.g. can the gift be paid for in stock, how much time does the donor have to pay-off their pledge, etc). Uh-oh! Maybe I shouldn’t “close the deal” right now because I need to find some answers to this donors questions.

Volunteers are already super reluctant to participate in face-to-face solicitations. One of their many fears is being unable to answer a donor’s question (or providing inaccurate answers to their questions).

From a staff perspective, written policies are your friend because they keep volunteers from calling you every other time with questions about whether or not something can be done. When your volunteer solicitors are empowered with that kind of knowledge, they are more successful at “closing the gift” and have fewer prospects to follow-up with after the original solicitation call.

Overall, writing campaign policies saves both staff and volunteers time and increases a volunteer’s confidence heading into a solicitation call.

Writing policies does not need to be a difficult or time-consuming part of your annual campaign planning process. I encourage staff and campaign volunteers to sit down and make a list of commonly asked questions. I suspect the following questions might be found on most lists:

  • How often can the non-profit send me a pledge reminder (e.g. how many payments can I slice my pledge into)? Or can you bill me on an irregular schedule of May, August, November and December?
  • By when do I need to have my pledge paid?
  • Do you accept stock as a form of payment? Or can I pay my contribution with a credit card?
  • Do you accept in-kind contributions, too? (e.g. cars, computer equipment, etc)
  • Will you send me an acknowledgement letter that I can give to my accountant for tax purposes? How soon will I get that documentation?
  • Will you share my name and contract information with other companies?
  • Can I make this contribution anonymously?
  • I hate receiving all that junk mail from charities . . . can I opt out of those mailings (e.g. newsletter, etc)?
  • I don’t like public recognition, can you keep my name off of donor honor rolls, newsletter recognition and the website?
  • May I designate my annual campaign contribution to a specific program or to a future building fund?

This list can go on and on and on, which can make this step in the planning process look time-consuming. So, I encourage you to not get carried away. If you haven’t ever written campaign policies, then start small. You can always add written policies in the future.

If you already have written resource development policies as part of your organization’s written resource development plan, then you may not have to re-invent the wheel. However, staff and volunteers should still take a moment to review those policies to ensure there isn’t anything missing from an annual campaign perspective.

If you are a “googling fool” like me, it will be a challenge to find samples if you try searching “annual campaign policies”. I suggest searching on phrases such as: “donor recognition policies” or “fundraising policies”. You’ll have a little more success. Or you can just facilitate an organic exercise and ask questions like the ones I pose above.

The biggest thing to remember is: involve your volunteers in this process. This is NOT a staff-only activity. Don’t forget that these written policies exist to help your volunteer solicitors feel more confident and get “The Question Song” out of their head before/during/after a solicitation call. So, excluding them from this process would be counter-productive.

ALSO … don’t forget that only the board of directors has the ability to bring written policies to life. So, whatever the annual campaign committee decides needs to be reviewed and approved by the board.

Does your organization have written policies that help guide your annual campaign? If so, are you willing to share them with others? How did you develop your policies? How and when do you educate volunteer solicitors on these policies before sending them out to talk to donors?

Please use the comment box below to answer some of these questions. As I always say, we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

The Sounds of Annual Campaign Planning: Part 3

Fundraising, Planning

In case you didn’t tune in on Monday or Tuesday, please know that I am dedicating all of this week’s blog posts to the 2012 annual campaign planning process, and I’m putting it all to music just for the fun of it. Today’s post focuses on constructing your campaign’s case for support (aka case statement).

Cue the music . . . click here for your first musical selection then start reading.  🙂

I think it is important to start off by saying there are many different ‘schools of thought’ about what is and is not a case statement (aka case for support). However, when it is all said and done, I don’t think it matters in which camp you find yourself. It is far more important to be in a camp and in possession of a powerful case statement by the time you complete your annual campaign planning process.

Ann Fitzgerald of A.C. Fitzgerald & Associates does a nice job explaining what a case statement is when she says:

“The case for support, or case statement, is a marketing and fundraising tool that explains in an urgent and compelling manner why someone should support the campaign. It answers the prospective donor’s questions about the nonprofit organization, the project and the cost. And it does so in a way that connects the donor emotionally to a grander vision.”

On Ann’s website, she does a nice job of channeling Tom Ahern’s point of view in his book “Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes” on how to go about writing an effective case statement.

Putting your case statement together during the pre-campaign planning process is important. It allows you to utilize volunteers to craft your powerful messaging about why a donor should support your campaign with a contribution. Going through this exercise during the campaign planning process should mean volunteers have bought into the messaging and will use the case statement resource later on when they’re out soliciting prospects and donors. Finally, if your case statement is done as part of your planning efforts, it can be used as a recruitment tool when you’re out recruiting volunteer solicitors in December and January.

While some organizations turn their case document into actual marketing material for use during the solicitation meeting (e.g. Jewish Federation of San Diego County). Others treat the case strictly as an internal document and use it to train volunteer solicitors in what to say during a solicitation call (and they create other solicitation materials based upon the messaging found in the case statement).

In addition to helping shape and support the face-to-face solicitation process of an annual campaign, your organization’s case statement should be used to construct the letter for the targeted mail phase of the campaign. It can even be used to craft more effective post-solicitation gift acknowledgement letters and subsequent stewardship materials and messaging.

In an effort to help you internalize some of the most important portions of an effective case statement, I am putting each section to music. I hope you enjoy!

  • Section #1: Who are you? Mission? Vision? Who you serve? What you do? . . . let’s channel a little Lionel Richie here.
  • Section #2: What is the problem(s) in your community that need solving? You are channeling part of a ‘community need assessment’ here, and teh challanges should be things your agency is positioned to help with. These are not your organizational needs.  As for a song . . . I think Paul got it right when he sang about yesterday.
  • Section #3: What does your non-profit do to help solve these community problems? What programs are you running and how effective are they? I’m going to go with Michael Stipe and REM for this selection to pay tribute to this band’s 31-year run.
  • Section #4: Call to action! How can a donor get involved in being part of the solution. And can there be any other musical selection than Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero“?

There are tons of online resources you can access to help you write an effective case for support. Click around and you’ll find what you’re looking for. However, I encourage you to involve volunteers and donors. After all, these are the people who need to use this resource or get inspired by its messaging. And by all means . . . please start your annual campaign planning process TODAY (see Monday’s post for a starting point) because we’re all going to blink and 2011 will be a distant memory and we’ll all be saying “Let’s do the time warp again“. LOL

How does your organization craft its annual campaign case statement? How do you know it is effective? How do you use it? Have you ever involved donors and volunteers in the process? If so, how? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

The Sounds of Annual Campaign Planning: Part 2

Fundraising, Planning

For those of you following along, you know that I am dedicating all of this week’s blog posts to the 2012 annual campaign planning process, and I’m putting it all to music just for the fun of it. Today’s post focuses on prospect identification & evaluation and campaign goal setting.

Cue the music . . . click here for your first musical selection then start reading.  🙂

For many of you, this is budget season and you’re sitting around your computers plugging numbers into spreadsheets. Finance committee and board volunteers are poking and prodding, which results in revisions and more meetings. “Lather-Rinse-Repeat“.

As you go through this mind-numbing process, I know many of you are projecting your annual campaign revenue all alone in your locked office. Even more likely, you’re probably pulling numbers out of the air, plugging them into spreadsheet cells that previously held smaller numbers, and are muttering things under your breath like:

  • “Well, we just don’t have a choice. The annual campaign simply needs to bring that in.”
  • “We raised $X last year … surely our volunteers and staff can increase that by 10%.”
  • “Once we make the case to our annual campaign donors, they will see things for what they actually are and everyone will increase their gift a little bit.”

If this picture describes you, then stop what you’re doing. Put down the Häagen-Dazs ice cream. And push away from the spreadsheet. Click here for your next musical selection because we need to take a good hard look in the mirror.

As I posted yesterday, I really encourage you to sit down with volunteers to do your 2012 annual campaign planning. Before tossing numbers around and rationalizing a new goal, I urge you to dig into your donor database and start with real numbers.

I’ve always liked involving volunteers first and starting with donor identification & evaluation exercises, then using that data/analysis to back into a campaign goal. For some reason it just feels more real to me. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Look at who gave last year. Determine who is likely to make another contribution. Set a ‘suggested ask amount’ based on past giving history and what the people around the table are saying about that donor’s capacity and willingness to contribute in 2012.  (Always remember — people’s lives change)
  • Look for new prospective donors. Ask volunteers to review donor lists from your special events (or any other fundraiser for that matter). Also ask them to review donor honor rolls from other non-profits and service club membership rosters. Many of these are ‘cold leads,’ but with the right person making the solicitation they might just turn into a supporter. Be very conservative when assigning suggested ask amounts to these prospects.
  • Look at your agency’s ‘prospect cultivation list’ for the last year. Add any names from that list if you think they’re ready to take that next step from ‘prospect’ to ‘donor’. Again, be very conservative when assigning suggested ask amounts to these prospects.
  • After you and your volunteers have agreed upon a complete list of prospects and assigned each of them an ask amount, sum the column and divide by two (or divide by three if you want to be very conservative). Congratulations . . . you now have your first draft annual campaign goal that can be inserted into the agency’s 2012 budget spreadsheet.

The truth is that this is probably just a starting point. Many fundraising professionals and executive directors like to start tweaking the numbers from here.

  • Some people pull out the donors with giving history and only applying the “divide by two” or “divide by three” rule to new campaign prospects.
  • Some people use a Range of Gifts chart to do this analysis, and instead of dividing anything, they add two or three prospects for every gift required.
  • Some people have these discussions with volunteers around a table, and others use a paper or digital process to take personalities out of it and inject an air of confidentiality.

There is no science to this process, but the hard truth is that you need to develop a process that instills a sense of confidence in the numbers for your volunteers. I believe starting with prospect identification and evaluation exercises that lead into a discussion around goal setting keeps things realistic. Of course, there will be talk about “what needs to be raised,” but the work you do on the front-end will help balance the urge to use ‘plug numbers’ in your agency’s budget spreadsheet on the back-end.

If you start down this path now, then you might just find yourself humming this song from R. Kelly when sitting in front of your spreadsheet plugging in revenue numbers for your annual campaign.

How does your agency set its annual campaign goals? What ‘science’ do you bring to the table with your volunteers? Too many of us pull numbers of the air. So, please step up and share how you do things because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

The Sounds of Annual Campaign Planning: Part 1

Planning, volunteers

Labor Day has come and gone. I guess we can’t wear white again until the spring?!?! And Halloween merchandise is all over the place. This year — 2011 — will be over before any of us realize. Has your non-profit organization started its annual campaign planning process? If not, you better get moving and do so fast!

I love this time of the year!!! So, in honor of starting the 2012 annual campaign planning season, I am dedicating all of this week’s blog posts to the planning process. AND I’ve decided to put it all to music just to make it a little fun. Today’s post focuses on the volunteer identification and recruitment part of the annual campaign planning process.

Cue the music . . . click here for your first musical selection about volunteers and then start reading.  🙂

Annual campaigns that rely on face-to-face solicitation (compared to direct mail and ePhilanthropy) need volunteers to make this campaign vehicle go anywhere. Staff cannot go out and solicit by themselves because: 1) there are only so many hours in a day and 2) volunteers have far more credibility because they aren’t seen as “fundraising their salary” like paid-staff can sometime be perceived as doing. (Note: I didn’t say staff cannot solicit because I believe their butts need to be firmly planted in the chair next to a volunteer during most solicitation meetings)

So, let’s begin with volunteer recruitment as we start down the planning road. First, identify and recruit campaign leadership (these are the people who will help you with campaign planning), then recruit all the other volunteers (aka volunteer solicitors) later on (e.g. December and January). Here are a few quick tips to keep in mind as you start:

  • Start off by writing job descriptions for each of your volunteer opportunities.
  • Use the written job descriptions to build a prospect list for each position you need to fill. This will help you better understand what types of skill sets you’re looking for in certain individuals. You will find great prospects among your board of directors, volunteers, and donors. You don’t just want warm bodies.
  • Use the written job descriptions to recruit volunteers. This will help you better communicate to prospects what you need them to do. It helps set expectations upfront and avoid misunderstanding. If you get a ‘NO’, celebrate the answer (in private) because they couldn’t help you and you just avoided lots of heartache and pain. Did I mention that you don’t just want warm bodies.
  • Get organized and on the same page once you get everyone recruited. Have a short orientation meeting. Explain to everyone where they’re going. Take the opportunity to have everyone pull out their calendars and coordinate meeting dates/times that fit into everyone’s schedule. Urge them to INK those commitments.
  • Keep in mind that volunteers are NOT meant to just be a rubber stamp. Please be genuine and engage volunteers in making key campaign decisions as you head down the planning road. No one has time to waste by sitting in meetings to just “validate” a written plan that staff has already written.
  • Keep in mind that volunteers will NOT do this work by themselves. Staff play a valuable role in supporting and guiding any volunteer planning group. So, come prepared to paint the picture by providing data, weigh-in with different suggestions, and be able to explain pros and cons of behind each decision.

Successfully recruiting your campaign leadership to participate in the planning process ensures “buy-in” and “engagement”. It also guarantees that staff will not find themselves on an island all by themselves in the middle of the campaign.

Recruiting the right people lays a perfect transformative foundation for any annual campaign. Jim Collins  (author of “Good to Great“) talks about this in terms of getting “the right people on the bus”. However, since this week’s posts are all about putting the annual campaign planning process to music, I think it is fitting to end with the lyrics of Jefferson Airplane as they sing their hit song “Volunteers“.

Remember, there is very little time remaining before 2011 ends. Start recruiting campaign leadership TODAY, so you can embark on your planning process TOMORROW!

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Annual Campaign Boot Camp?

Fundraising

As many of you know, I opened my non-profit consulting practice a few weeks ago after Labor Day. It was a “soft open,” which means I am actively pursuing and accepting work, but I’m still frantically developing business infrastructure like my website, menu of services, etc. In fact, I am running out the door in just a few minutes to meet with my marketing friends at Marketplace Media Group.

Part of the “opening the doors” process has been identifying services and trying to price them according to what the marketplace of non-profit organizations allegedly demands. One of the services I plan to offer is something I’m naming “Annual Campaign Boot Camp“.

I got this idea from my personal trainer, Kathy Bruno, who runs a weekly “Fit Camp Challenge” at The Centre, which is my gym in Elgin, IL. In this program, Kathy is a coach and consultant focused on teaching participants best practices around exercise and diet. She is the accountability queen, and I think she enjoys beating the living life out of me every Wednesday.

So, it was a few weeks ago as I slugged around the track I started thinking: “Hey, I wonder if non-profit leaders and resource development professions would participant in a similar program focused around annual campaign planning and implementation? And if so, what would it look like?”

Every since that epiphany, I’ve had this scene from Stripes playing over and over in my head as I trudge around the track. Click this link if you want to enjoy a trip down memory lane with Bill Murray.

However, my challenge is that I need to add some flesh to the bones of this concept, and I would like some help from YOU (which means I am asking all of you shy subscribers to this blog to please take a moment to write a comment or drop me a note via email or social media . . . PLEASE . . . I really do need your help)

Here are some of the random (and incomplete) ideas and questions rolling around my head:

  • Bi-weekly coaching sessions by phone with participants (resource development staff only or campaign chairperson included?)
  • Just coaching or are there some online “trainings” also offered?
  • Is there a benchmarking component to the program for post-campaign comparative purposes?
  • Is there a “group component” to this program? For example, should there be opportunities for all organizations that sign-up to periodically assemble in the same online chatroom (or Tweet-up) to discuss challenges and learn from each other (and collectively share solutions with each other)? If so, how often?

I normally use my blog bully pulpit to talk about your challenges and provide subscribers with my expertise and advice. Today, I’m turning the tables and asking for your expertise and advice. PLEASE take one minute out of your day and help me with some of these questions.

Any comments and feedback would be very much appreciated! What else do you think should be included in this Boot Camp product? What issues do you have with your organization’s annual campaign that you think could be helped with a service like this? What price do you think organizations your size might be willing to pay for this service?

I normally end my blog posts by saying “We can learn from each other” . . . however, today I’m going to emphasize that “I can learn from you.” I look forward to your input and appreciate your time. Thank you!!!

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

I feel manipulated!

Fundraising

I wake up on Sunday mornings, brew a pot of coffee and tune into my favorite Sunday morning news shows like The Chris Matthews Show and Meet the Press. However, this last Sunday morning I woke up to a parade of coverage focusing exclusively on the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. So, I sat on my couch all morning, sipping coffee and fought back the tears and horrible memories.

Like most Americans, I have vivid memories of those difficult days. I can tell you exactly where I was when the first news broke. I can give you a blow-by-blow accounting of my day. I couldn’t stop watching the news coverage in the weeks after Sept. 11th, and those videos of the planes crashing into the towers and people wandering around the New York streets with pictures of their fallen loved ones are just haunting. In fact, I am getting teary right now typing about it, and I have goosebumps on my arms. UGH!

So, as I watched television on Sunday morning, I found myself getting angry whenever a network would cut away from their coverage and some company’s commercial exploited 9-11  as an opportunity to sell their product. They masterfully pulled at my heart-strings and tapped into raw emotions all in the name of consumerism. Check out this Budweiser commercial to see what I mean.

Unfortunately, the beer company wasn’t the only ones doing it. Stephen Colbert did a nice job nailing a number of these culprits. Click here to check-out his comedic report.

You might be asking right about now: “What does this have anything to do with non-profit organizations, fundraising or donors?”

As I processed my thoughts and feelings in the wake of Sunday’s emotional coverage, I came to two very strong conclusions.

  1. This kind of marketing is manipulative, feels really yucky and makes me not want to buy those products.
  2. Non-profit organizations sometimes do the same kind of thing.

What?!?! Huh?!?! Where did THAT come from?

Come on! You know what I mean:

  • Please sir . . . won’t you please make a contribution? Without YOUR support we will have to close our doors and throw those kids out onto the street.
  • Please ma’am . . . for just the cost of that “Triple Venti Skinny Cinnamon Dulce Latte” you can feed a village of starving people for a day.”
  • Please make a donation today to remember the 9-11 victims, which will allow our organization to invest in a “get out the vote” effort. (This really was a fundraising pitch. Don’t believe me? Click here!)

I know, I know . . . appealing to people’s emotions is very effective and is considered a best practice for all good fundraising and marketing campaigns. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am NOT saying that we need to strip the emotion out of our messaging, but I am saying that we need to be very careful about not crossing that line and using FEAR to motivate donors.

Knowing where that emotional line is can be difficult and different when deal with individual donors. For example, my partner detests the fundraising commercials for the ASPCA, and he swears that he will never give to that charity because he feels manipulated by them.

So, how can you and your agency know where that line is? While it is a tough question that probably doesn’t have a good answer, you better figure it out if you’re committed to a donor-centered fundraising paradigm.

The one suggestion I can offer is . . .  get your donors engaged in the process. Before sending out an emotional mail appeal (or for that matter any piece aimed at cultivation, solicitation or stewardship), what would be so wrong will convening a donor focus group to review the package and provide feedback?

What are your thoughts? What does your organization do to minimize the possibility of tripping over your donors’ emotional-point-of-no-return? What is the most manipulative thing you’ve ever seen a non-profit organization do? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts because we can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Erik Anderson
Owner, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
eanderson847@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847